


Cost of the Crown

by Walkinthegarden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A Queen's Love for her Knights, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Knights - Freeform, Queen Sansa, R plus L equals J, The Last Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1459192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walkinthegarden/pseuds/Walkinthegarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa is the last Stark of Winterfell. With Jon in the King's Landing and married to the Dragon Queen, Sansa is alone to rule in the North. Her family gone and her husband dead, the only one left to care for her are her knights. Being a Queen means she must stand back and allow them to die for her.  It is not the first time she will have to watch them die. As a child she had dreamed of being Queen, but that was before she understood the cost of the crown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cost of the Crown

Sansa Stark – of House Stark and Tully, Lady of Winterfell, Queen of the Trident, Tamer of Wildings, Princess and Heir of Westeros under King Jon, Lady of Casterly Rock, and Queen and Warden of the North

 

Any that live in the North know the titles by heart. She is a living legend; story tellers write stories and singers sing songs in her honor. She is a beauty among ruins, the jewel of the North (and so affectionately named) but even her most obscenely enamored subjects see the darkness that lingers behind her cool Tully eyes.

 

She is still the beauty she was always meant to be, with a face of porcelain and hair of golden fire, but the rest of her body is a map of anger and evil. Few have ever seen them, but people whisper that burns scar her right arm and thin red lashes cross her back. They say she was shackled, whipped, burned, and disfigured; but all it takes is her pretty face, sweet words, and even prettier smile for the world to be deceived.

 

Winterfell, while beautiful, is no longer the welcoming castle of the Queen’s youth. When the sun goes to bed, the lights are extinguished and the occupants are sent to sleep or forced to stumble about in the dark.

 

The castle looks forbidden in the night, untouchable against the harsh moonlight.

 

If one were to stay up to the latest of night hours, they would see the pale ash face of their Queen in a window, staring up at the night sky. She stands tall in the same gown she wears in the daylight. Her eyes are cast upward and filled with barely hidden tears. She’s a queen without family, without any reason other than her duty to continue on in this life.

 

The ghost of a smile crosses her pretty face as she stares at the stars. They are beautiful, and should her sister be alive, she thinks that maybe Arya is also gazing at them. She used to look at them as a child, back when she was young and naive to the real world. They were the jewels of the sky that her mother promised a valiant knight would one day gather for her to make a crown.

 

She has a crown, something she wanted more then anything else in her youth. It’s the same one Robb wore, fashioned like swords and made of bronze and iron. The people say she was born for it, to be their Queen. She’d imagined such a life as a child. She’d imagined a doting prince that would love her and honor her. She’d thought she’d bare his children and that they’d care for them together. She thought her life would be a song.

 

She was a stupid girl then.

 

She didn’t know what being a queen would be like. It was cold and cruel and it destroyed what little innocence she still had. She was a slave to her children, her subjects. She had to care for them and only them. She was their mother, their wife, their protector, and their lover. She was a good Queen, yet her people starved in the winter. Each bite she took, each soldier that fell, cut her soul. She was the Queen, her own comfort should be the least of concern. It was her duty to protect _them_. She had to be their trusted confidant and friend, but she could not do the same with them.

 

No one is more alone than a Queen.

 

She loves all her children; both the high born that flock to her like birds to feed and low born that stare at her with wide eyes and reach out their skin covered bones to touch her. She loves them truly and wholly, but it is nothing in comparison to the love of her knights. The knights are her greatest companions.

 

Many in her service were cast aways from the South, a wide variety from Ser Jamie of House Lannister to Gendry, one of the many bastards of House Baratheon. Despite it all she loves them, they council her in the finer points of war and are the only ones who truly know what she must do every day. They listen to her as she laughs in the halls during a feast and cry in her room during the night.

 

_“Your Grace, my Queen,” the boy cried out with an excited voice. He was young, close to ten and six, with dark hair that reminded her of Robb and large blue eyes that screamed of little Rickon. “I have heard tales of your kindness and I have seen it. Years back when I was just a boy of ten, my sister and I were orphaned when the Dragon Queen came through Casterly Rock. We had nothing left and my sister and I had not supped in days. You saw us on the roadside, near death. You took my sister in your arms and fed her from your own water skin. You had us fed and sent us to foster at Highgarden under Lord Loras Tyrell. My sister is ten and one now, engaged to be married to Lord Tyrell himself. I was to be married to the sweet babe of Lord Tyrell’s sister, Lady Margery, but I begged permission to come and join your Queensguard. I promise to forever be loyal to you and protect you till my last breath.”_

 

She did what no Queen should do. She allowed herself to fall in love with the boy. He was as close to a son as she would ever have. Her brother-cousin Jon’s young son is heir to her throne and she is never to marry or bare children.

 

Not a fortnight ago the Karstarks had risen against her, rebelling fiercely and killing many of her subjects. With fear in her heart she had sent her knights to quiet the rebellion, wanting desperately to hold her knights close and never let them go, but she could not. Her kingdom came first, far above the well-being of any one man, woman, or child. They did not blame her of course; they did so happily, ready to defend their Queen and all she held dear.

 

Nearly forty of her knights were slaughtered. The rebellion was quieted, but forty of her children were dead.

 

_“Your Grace!” Gendry yelled, throwing open the doors to her chamber without so much as a knock. She would not punish him for it._

 

_“Gendry…”_

 

_“Come, my Queen, quick.”_

 

_She gathered her skirts in her hands and ran, following Gendry down the cold halls of Winterfell. People parted quickly, having never seen their Queen respond so unlady-like to anything._

 

_She threw the doors open to the maester’s chambers and nearly fell to her knees at the sight._

 

_Laying on the bed was the boy with Robb’s hair and little Rickon’s eyes. He was hot with fever, panting heavily. He wore no armor or shirt, his body wrapped in crimson bandages. A year in her service and already he lay dying. His handsome face was twisted in pain and his eyes held fear._

 

_She went to his side and took his hot hand in her cold one._

 

_“Sweet boy,” she whispered gently as she brushed his hair out of his eyes with her other hand._

 

_“I-I killed him Your Grace, I killed Lord Karstark. I-I got him for y-you,” he stuttered between pants of pain._

 

_“Yes, and I am forever grateful. You have protected many innocents,” she cooed softly before turning to the Maester. “Is there nothing we can give him for the pain?”_

 

_“Please My Queen, tell my sister I wished to see her wedding, really,” he huffed, “Tell her I loved her.”_

 

_“Of course,” she whispered, forcing a smile onto her face._

 

_“I did it for y-you Y-Your Grace, to k-keep you safe,” he stuttered. “A-Are you proud?”_

_“I have always been proud my young knight, always so very proud,” she whispered._

_“Please…” he trailed off, his head falling to the side, his eyes going blank._

_Sansa felt the tears prickling in the back of her eyes and pure, unadulterated fury course through her veins._

_“Your Grace, the man is dead. We saw to it,” Ser Jamie informed her._

_Suddenly she was back to the cool Queen of the North, with eyes as cold as ice and a face as emotionless as a corpse._

_“Of course, you take care of each other,” she stated simply. With a nod of her head she turned and left._

Tears cloud Sansa’s eyes as she looks up at the stars. “Please,” she whispers to the gods, to any gods, “no more.”

 

In the darkness of her chamber she falls to her knees and sobs.

 

It is the last time she’ll ever cry.

_“And if you have compassion---let me send no more to die!”_

 

\- Cost of the Crown, Mercedes Lackey


End file.
